


How the Blood Mage got her Scars

by ppasserine



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Mage, Blood Magic, Young Hawke, maddison hawke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ppasserine/pseuds/ppasserine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a fit of anger, Carver Hawke tells a young Templar that his elder sister, Maddison Hawke, is a maleficar. The Templar finds the child mage practicing on spiders just outside of Lothering, and smites her. Maddison and her pride demon, Narcissa, can't allow that to go unpunished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the Blood Mage got her Scars

The light silk of her hair fell over her cheek and into the pooling blood. A faint flutter, folded up somewhere inside of her, threatened to drag her back. She almost yielded to it. Almost let Narcissa tear her flesh into shapes that fit her, just for Carver. Just for that blighted Templar. 

“Ma- Maddison?” His voice was so fragile. Like a dead sister wasn’t something he wanted. Not dead, he claimed, just Taken or Far Far Away, in a prison where she couldn’t hurt anybody anymore, where she couldn’t ever see the sky again. 

Maddison snarled and let Narcissa brush the pieces of her soul back together, tugging at her boundaries and ripping- ripping into her bloodstream just to keep her breathing, pushing herself through the veil. Maddison pushed back. 

Her eyes dull and purple and the only colour left in the room, she rose, met her gaze with the Templar’s. Met his terror. Met his desire. Met him, soul and body, through her demon’s eyes. But he had only scraps of pride to gather, only very little to appeal to, and nothing worth taking. The boy child was right, then all that pride of his turned to ash in his soul. Sat there waiting to be cleaned up, or claimed by the wind.

Narcissa mocked him, dragging Maddison along for the ride. Currents of laughter spilled out of their shared body and she stepped forward, ripping as she went; into blood, into the veil; and set upon the Templar. Without blades to aid her she clawed into her flesh with nail, opening old scars and using the fresh blood to summon Rage and Terror and push, keep pushing, keep breathing. 

Kept advancing on him, overwhelmed by Rage and Terror, but he was fighting with the panic and the spite that his training demanded. He fought, dispatching the lesser demons with all he had left in him. He had spent his lyrium on that great Holy Spite and she could see his blood aching for more, and more and more. She twisted it, lyrium-imbued blood of her own, to snap his tendons and pull him in as she pushed. He fought. Perhaps he had some pride left in him, yet. Or perhaps it was just hunger, for the glimmer of Fade that Narcissa carried with her as she pushed ever forwards. 

He fought, and cut down the last Fear before turning on the child. Just a child, said his pride, said his mercy. The child reaching into his bloodstream, bending his yearning for lyrium this way and that, and Maddison could feel her body shaking, feel her power growing, as she pushed against Narcissa, as Narcissa pushed against the veil. She clenched his blood tighter, watching the will drain from the Templar’s eyes, when a rustling to her side drew her out. 

Maddison saw her arm dart upwards to catch the wrist of her younger brother, a knife in his hand angled toward her heart. She shook, felt Narcissa’s bloodlust grip her, and pushed back stronger than she ever had before. She reached through the demon in her soul and clung to her physical body, twisted her brother’s wrist until he dropped the knife into her other hand. She lifted the knife to her eye line and pressed the blade to her brow, slicing it heavily across her flesh, then flicking it towards the Templar, who was trying to stand on weak legs. He fell backwards almost instantly, his energy seeping out of him and into Maddison’s palm. 

She looked away when the Templar’s lifeless body slumped back against the ground, the remnants of his soul working around her own body, knitting her smaller wounds back together poorly. Without meeting his gaze, she pushed Carver’s wrist away from her body and dropped the knife to the ground. She stepped away from Carver and pulled her shoulders together, hugging her chest and clenching her eyes. 

“Maddison…?” Carver’s voice, like glass in its stillness- so, so fragile- sounded too loud in the aftermath. 

“Don’t,” she warned.

He didn’t, for a moment.

“I thought you were going to kill me,” his whisper bubbled. Maddison inclined her head towards him, opening her eyes to a squint. His face was bright pink and wet with tears, his body trembling, eyes wide and unblinking. She balled her fists, uncertain whether the knot in her stomach was Narcissa’s disgust, or her own guilt. 

Narcissa busied herself with healing while Maddison reached out towards Carver and rested her hand upon his head. When his sobs broke the tension she stroked his hair and pulled him into a hug. 

“Never,” she promised, “you’re family. You protect family.” 

“I’m- I’m so sorry, I didn’t- It was my fault, I-”

“I know,” she drew back. He stumbled forwards when she released the hug, and opened his mouth to let more apologies stumble with him. Maddison spoke before he could. “But you won’t be doing it again, will you?” 

Carver stared at her for a moment before shaking his head frantically, mouthing words but not speaking them.

She sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the dead Templar. “We still have to do something about the body. Will you help me?” She asked.

“Y-yes. YesIcandothat.” He shuffled forwards, wanting to move to the Templar’s corpse, but not wanting to step away from Maddison’s touch. 

They worked in silence for a while. Maddison looted what she could and stripped the body, while Carver set about cutting it up into smaller pieces. When Maddison lit a flame in her palm and began burning the first piece, Carver took a shuddering breath and spoke.

“Did you- did you make a deal? With demons? For your magic, I mean?”

Maddison inclined her head towards him, a glimmer of amusement behind her eyes. “No,” she said, “I was born with my magic. But for the… power- that you saw before- that was given to me by a demon.”

“Just one?”

Maddison nodded.

Carver stared for a moment, wide-eyed and vacant, then nodded shortly and looked away. He picked up a piece of the Templar’s armour and began rubbing the blood off, so it would be clean when they sold it to bandits. The tension simmered with only silence and the scent of burning flesh between them. 

“Her name is Narcissa,” Maddison offered, letting the cremated Templar’s ashes fall from her hands and join the dirt. “I met her when I was thirteen, and we- what did you say? Made a deal- a year later.”

“But- don’t blood mages usually become abominations?” Carver asked without looking away from the armour he was cleaning. 

“How do you know I’m not?” Maddison laughed, then shook her head. “No. I’m still me. Always was me. All those _maleficar_ you hear about are the worst-case scenarios. They took a demon’s offer into their soul too quickly and the power tore them to pieces. They lose control, and then only the demon’s left. I wasn’t prey when Narcissa gave me her power. I wasn’t- desperate, or trapped, or fighting for my life. I wasn’t mad with freedom. Narcissa gave me a year to decide if I wanted what she could offer me, if her price was worth the power. She’s been with me ever since.”

Carver had paused his cleaning to listen. “What was her price?” 

Maddison inclined her head and leaned backwards, a motion Carver recognised from whenever she was trying to keep a secret. “Worth it,” she said finally.

“How do you know she’s not just fooling you?”

“Hey, come on now, have you ever known anybody who’s fooled _your sister_ and gotten away with it,” Maddison laughed. “I’ve got it under control,” she added with a shrug, and in that Carver could see the pride her demon fed on.

Or maybe even see the demon herself.


End file.
